Body shaming and self love...

In a way, it's good that body shaming is a hot topic now. I know what it's like to grow up feeling like a sub-human, feeling like trash, feeling like dirt because I wasn't thin and delicate.

When I'm in my darker moments, it's still what I cry myself to sleep about. If only, if only, if only.

The thing is about it all is that you have to be able to see yourself as already beautiful and worthy. Worthy of love and respect. Worthy of living.

I stopped eating, once, despite having a very active job. I lived on alcohol, a cup of yogurt, and little sleep. People noticed and congratulated me on it, but I wasn't healthy. I was dying inside and my head was full of my demons. I dreamed about taking a knife and carving the fat away.

When I changed my way of thinking, even though I gained the weight back, my health changed. Despite side effects from medications I take, I am as healthy as I could want. I follow my health closely, because I love myself. I am worthy and beautiful. I deserve my own respect and the respect of my peers. I know that people might look at me and make judgements, but that is not their place and I don't have to prove myself to them.

So, don't judge someone just because they are fat. Don't assume that because they have pride in themselves as they are right now, that they follow a movement that promotes self love where you are at, that they aren't taking care of their health.

Meds and more meds...

Meds are a funny thing. Sometimes funny-ha-ha. Sometimes funny-ugh.

The first time I went on meds it was a nutty little pill named Effexor. My father had died months earlier and a doctor finally thought that maybe I could benefit from some pharmaceutical assistance. Three days later, I was already feeling some benefits. I was lucky, because that is when my boyfriend decided to tell me that I had changed and he didn't love me anymore. Without the pills, I doubt I would have survived the blow.

For a time, I did well without meds at all. I worked. I went to school and stayed at the top of my class. Then, just before my final placement in college, anxiety and panic attacks came out of nowhere. I remember how confusing it was, since I had been feeling on top of the world. I will never know what triggered it, but it effected me on the daily.

So! Back on Effexor I went. At first it worked, with minimal side effects. Did you know that excessive yawning is a side effect? Neither did I, but I do now. Harmless, but as annoying as hiccups that won't go away.

Then...I just wasn't myself. I started doing things that I hid from everyone, except a very small group of people who encouraged my behaviour. There were many days I came into my placement still drunk or hungover. A few days I was wearing the same clothes as the day before. Nobody noticed. I would have a miscarriage during this time and the people I had surrounded myself with were not there for me. I dealt with it alone.

Then, one day, I started crying. I don't remember why, but I cried out all of the tears that had filled the emptiness inside. I could see my bottle of anti-anxiety pills across the room, but I knew if I picked up that bottle that I would take the whole thing. After many, MANY, many hours, a crisis worker on the phone talked me through the steps needed to walk across the room and take only one of the pills. I saw my doctor the next day and told him that if he said I had to live like this a day more, I would say I couldn't. I stopped Effexor that day.

It has been a long road since then, of trial and error. The medication I take now, Seroquel, has been a life saver and damaging all at the same time. My moods have been stable for well over a year, but it has physical side effects that I struggle to accept, such as hypothyroidism and type 2 diabetes. It is difficult having to choose between physical health and mental health, but if I didn't have my mental health, I wouldn't survive anyways.

It is a health crossroads at another kind of crossroads in my life. What am I doing? Where am I going? Health or sanity?

Snow.

I love snow. Really. I know a lot of people really hate this time of year because it gets cold and snowy, but I think it's really beautiful. Everything is crisp and clean looking.

There is something about it, though, that I don't like. I'm trapped in my own apartment. There is just so much of the white stuff on the ground that going out into it is a chore. Unless there is something I absolutely have to do, it generally isn't worth bundling up and going outside.

This creates a problem.

For anyone who has mental illness, you will probably agree with me that this time of year can be hard for a person's symptoms. Less sunlight and all. Isolation and lack of outdoor exercise only exacerbates the issues. This is where I am right now. I am feeling irritated by everything. The way I feel when I'm sitting, the way I feel when I'm laying down, the lack of places I can move to in the apartment, how much my dog wants to play (especially because there are few places for her to go as well). I can feel all of it closing in on me and, unless springtime magically falls from the sky tomorrow and melts the bridge-less moat that is wintertime, it is probably only going to continue this way for the next few months.

Sand

Why am I doing this?

Slow torture.

Lost in a desert

licking a moistened rock.

Sandpaper tongue.

Scrape

Scrape

Scrape

Thirsty for even a drop.

Standing Under the Stars.

I imagine myself, standing in a wide open field. The air is full of the scent of wild flowers, soft perfume in the night. Above me the sky is powdered with stars, watched over by the moon.

I open my arms to it all, staring with wonder at how beautiful the world can be, head bent back to the heavens.

Then I close my eyes and pray again.

I am grateful that all of my needs are met, except one. Though I should be content, my heartaches with the loneliness.

I pray that they are gentle. I pray that they are kind. I pray that their hands are warm adventurers and find me an ever fascinating world to explore. I pray that they are intelligent in different ways than I. I pray that they are giving. I pray that when they hold me, the world falls away, except for their heart beat and the scent of their skin. I pray that they find me exciting and beautiful. I pray that they want to wake to me every morning and fall asleep in my arms every night. I pray that they cannot imagine a world without me. I pray that they love me.

Most of all, I pray that they are brave enough to take the jump with me. To know that I would spend every day making them happy. To weather the bruises, for the rewards will be oh so sweet.

And there I wait. Under the stars. With the moon. In the night air. Praying.

Moments Like Roses

Even when the world feels frighteningly savage

There are such petal soft moments

Honey soaked words

That fill the air with shades of warm pinks

Sunny and golden yellows

Passionate bursts of reds

Words that fill the void

Pushing out the darkness and tears

And leaving behind beauty

Glowing like the dawn

Like blossoms blooming

Heartache

When there is hope and happiness

Words fill my mouth like stars

Sparkling and glowing

When the ugliness comes

Bringing heartache and despair

The stars turn into stones

Weighing down my tongue

Filling my mouth and throat

So that I cannot breathe

And they threaten to stay there

Company to the ache in my chest

My heart, my heart

That Doll

I have been

a broken doll of bisque.

Lines cracking across

her pretty, delicate features.

A road map of where she has been

and who has touched her

I have been that doll.

Played with,

then dropped

and put away.

She is hollow inside,

that doll I’ve been.

Nothing behind

those shiny, sparkling, hazel eyes.

Her chest void of a heart,

which was stolen and replaced with fluff.

I have been the doll

who once was a girl,

and would be again,

but was only a doll.

The In-between Place.

I can't describe
the feeling I carry around inside
Not quite depression
Not quite pain
It makes even well days
grey and sinister
It is the in-between feeling
The feeling that getting by
is not good enough
Will never be good enough
Like a bubble in my chest
that just won't pop
A bubble made of fog
and dust
and weight

Sometimes I will settle with what I get.

Some days I feel really good.

Maybe I don't have the positivity to believe that everything is possible, but I don't have those overwhelming feelings of sadness and depression following me around. It really is day by day.

Today is one of those days. I don't have any energy or drive to do anything, but I still feel like it's a good day. It was extra snowy out, so the whole world looks rather pretty now. My mother was losing her mind all day, but I still managed to come through that well enough. I just felt like I was ok. And that is good.

I'd like it if I had energy, of course. Since I started this new medication, I've lost that and gained naps that last for hours on top of over-sleeping each night. It is also making me gain weight, which will be a battle with my metabolic syndrome already making weight loss a fight. I'm hoping that my doctor and spring time will fix all of this so I have one less thing to worry about.

Still, I felt ok today, and I will take what I can get.

This is where I am.

It is very hard to live life when you feel like you would rather not live at all.

It's almost funny, being a community worker who suffers from mental illness, but that is what I am. I have wanted to help people who are sad and hurting my whole life. However, I can't help myself, though I am sad and hurting almost every day. It would seem that doctors also can't help me. Still, we keep trying.

So what do I do in the meantime? Generally, I try and blend in. After all, people feel sad when other people are sad. They also feel uncomfortable when you act depressed, so by acting in a truthful way, you end up even more isolated than you isolate yourself.

Why isolate yourself? Wouldn't you if you didn't want people to think you are a depressed freak? Or if even being around other people makes your nerves fly into overdrive from head to toe?

I would love to go back to school. I need further credentials in order to get a job in my field. It's the time of year that prospective students are applying to their programs of choice and hoping that they get that thick envelope of acceptance in return. Me? I have my application set, my program chosen, but will I send it out? Is it smart to when I don't know how I will be doing down the road? Right now I'm in the middle of recovering from a breakdown and I am unwell. Each day is lived as it comes.

So I keep doing it and waiting it out. Maybe I will be optimistic and plan my life ahead. Or maybe I won't. We will see.